Through These Eyes of Mine
by Catsitta
Summary: When all dreams are shattered and the Planet's only hope for redemption is slain, can a mere flower girl keep the world from plunging into everlasting darkness? Alternate Universe. SephirothxAerith.


**A/N:**

Well, um…I don't know exactly why I started this project when I have all the others as well…I guess you could say I'm toying with a concept and my writing style. But yeah~read and enjoy.

**Rating (chapter): **T (violence, mild language, blood, character death)

**Word Count: **1,170 (Short chapter, I know. Will it get longer as the story goes on? I don't know.)

**Summary: **When all dreams are shattered and the Planet's only hope is slain, can a mere flower girl keep the world from plunging into everlasting darkness? Alternate Universe. SephirothxAerith.

**Disclaimer: **Seriously, I'm just abusing the characters. I own nothing.

**Through These Eyes of Mine**

**By Catsitta**

**Chapter One**: Sacrifice

The clash of steel against steel filled the air like raucous thunder. Piercing wails of blades had long since become the mantra of this battle. So many were lost in the lustful fray, men falling victim to an enemy unseen, one that could emerge from the shadows with lethal silence. Cries of the dying, fearful and heartbroken intermingled with the roar of churning flame. The battleground was but a long expanse of charred soil, the air black with smoke.

Suddenly, all went silent.

It was as if the very Planet held its breath.

Men gazed up towards the sky, weapons heavy in exhausted hands. Their fatigue only worsened at what they witnessed plummeting from the heavens above.

Their leader into battle. Their guiding light. Their brightest hope.

Cloud Strife.

His lithe, teenage form hurtled towards the ground as if cast from the skies by Gaia Herself. The enormous sword that was his trademark weapon followed him in his descent, turning point over pommel in a perilous spiral. Then, he slammed into the earth with a sickening crack, his small body already broken from a previous assault. Cloud stood no chance against the forsaken enemy against which they all fought.

If he was the strongest among them, then his sacrifice would be for naught. They would fall on this day—conquered by a man they once followed into heat of battle.

As Cloud's sword buried into the soil near his head, the clouds above parted in a parody of divine splendor. Light filtered through the blackness, casting a silver-hued glow upon the ground below like a moonbeam. Amongst the stormy swaths of smoke that tainted the skies with the color of ash, loomed a figure of limitless, destructive potential. He seemed to soar through the air without the assistance of wings and with grace unlike any other, he sailed towards the ground…

Like a god of war or an angel of darkness, the ex-General of ShinRa was framed by the sunbeams and smoke, veiling him in dancing shadows as he plunged downwards. Gravity held no bind over his movement, and time might as well have stood still.

What could have been seconds, minutes or hours later, booted-feet slammed into charred soil, creating a small crater as the ground absorbed the impact of his descent. Then, he began to pad a slow circle around the blond teen that lay prone and unmoving. A smirk appeared on angelic features, contorting ethereal beauty with sinful wickedness. He was the epitome of perfection—no other creature on the Planet possessed beauty or strength like his.

Eyes of brilliant mako-green, possessing the unnatural glow of the Lifestream, and bearing slit pupils like a feline—with these the SOLDIER observed is chosen prey. Hair of luminescent silver, each strand catching the fractured, murky light—like a banner or a cascade, the locks rippled in a powerful gust, too heavy with length to lift past trim hips. Skin pale as ivory drew taut over sculpted features and corded muscle—most of this skin lay beneath thick folds of leather, black as a raven's wing, almost as if the surface stole away the light. A deadly sword, sheathed at his hip, with a blade longer than he stood tall—Masamune, she was his chosen weapon, one that only he could wield.

"_Pathetic_," the silver-haired dark angel spat, coming to a pause at last. His voice was low, lethal and seductive. Dangerous. Powerful. Intoxicatingly beautiful. "To think, Mother thought you a danger! A human is no threat to a god." He sneered as he spoke, every word laced with venom. Then, he lashed out, kicking the blond at his feet.

Cloud's lean body lurched with pain, his blue-eyed flying open, his vision glazed with grief and agony. The little hero knew he had failed. There was no winning this fight.

Drawing Masamune, the silver swordsman began to circle his prey yet again, his pace steady and slow…one could almost say he appeared bored, but that was far from the truth. Those eyes of his sparked with emerald fire—he enjoyed this game. He watched with wicked delight until Cloud's body seized and the blond began to cough up blood, spattering the dark angel's boots with the contents of his slowly collapsing lungs. "Insolent until the end, aren't you?" The silver warrior growled, at last plunging the sword through the teen's chest, caressing his heart with the flat of the blade.

The men watching this exchange, even those witnessing it from afar, knew that the final shudder of their leader's body was life leaving the boy. They stared with horror as the silver-haired dark angel withdrew Masamune and turned his attention towards their depleted ranks. After nearly a year of fighting, of trying to win an endless war with a single man, they were without the strength to preserve. It was over. The champion had fallen. They were but sheep ready for slaughter.

"SEPHIROTH!" It was a raw, wild cry. They knew only one man it could belong to.

In a streak of raven hair and burning, aquamarine eyes—Zack Fair charged the ex-General, Buster Sword held aloft. From where he came, none were sure, for like they, the First Class SOLDIER had been distracted from their target by monsters and a tumultuous inferno, leaving Cloud alone in his grave mission. But where he headed none had to guess. He wanted to avenge the death of his friend…to prove that the boy did not die in vain.

Masamune greeted the heavy blade Zack carried with remarkable ease. The dark angel, Sephiroth, continued to smirk. "This Planet is mine, human." He flicked his wrist and sent the smaller man sailing backwards. Then, with lightning quick reflexes, the silver warrior landed a devastating series of blows, catching Zack before he could even hit the ground.

Gasping for breath, the raven-haired SOLDIER laid broken and beaten upon his back, bleeding profusely from Sephiroth's Octaslash. He never knew how much the ex-General restrained himself in combat until this moment—and much like those who fell before him, Zack now paid the price in blood. But he could not let Cloud's death be in vain. He had to keep fighting until there was no strength left in his body with which to fight.

"B-bastard," Zack snarled weakly, attempting to rise to his feet, but Sephiroth knocked him down yet again. Eyes of mako-green burned bright with triumph.

"Pity. You are even more pathetic than the child." The silver warrior grinned maliciously, "However, I will no less delight in your end." Fear flashed on youthful, handsome features as Masamune's edge traced along Zack's jaw. "Goodbye…Zack." A graceful flick of his wrist and the keen blade sliced deep into the man's throat, stealing from him a final cry of defiance.

It was a name that death wrenched from his lips.

One that was foreign but felt familiar.

A name that sparked Jenova's interest as well as her disdain.

Aerith.

**-TBC-**

**A/N: ( Review? I adore feedback of any kind. =3**

**Also, for readers of 'Fourth Time's the Charm': you likely noticed similarities in this story from chapter one of Fourth Time. Why, you may ask. Well, I was having a talk with MuffinLordLionsGate and she made a comment about how Sephiroth probably wouldn't have gone crazy in Cloud's third life because he was a "she" and had a different life. Then I began to wonder: What happens to the worlds after Cloud 'dies'? Does time and the Planet reset completely, or is an alternate reality formed and the inhabitants of that world continue on the path they were traveling? I decided to continue writing through Cloud's second death, in which Cloud became a SOLDIER, Sephiroth never died the first time, Zack and Cloud led a war against a Jenova crazy General, and, le gasp, Sephiroth wins. **

**Hehe. I hope you all have fun reading this story! I'm not exactly sure how long it's going to be…)**


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